We even get a different chapter 11 than Eliwood does. Sadly we don't get all that many deviations. And in this case, it's a bad thing, because this chapter is annoying.
Hector and Matthew combine to break the wall, then advance through the gap. Hector kills the soldier while Matthew softens up the archer, then he opens the door to the south so we can collect sweet, delicious treasure as Hector kills the archer. Hector goes south to nuke the knight while Matthew heals, then opens the chest. Unfortunately this sequence triggers all the enemies to become aggressive, which is a lot to handle. Hector's pitiful accuracy with his Hand Axe leads to a few turns of doing nothing while picking at Archers as Matthew chases after the Thief to kill him. Eventually I do kill all the enemies though. I'm glad to be done with this map, it's tedious.
Chapter 12
And now we meet up with Eliwood.
I have to take some time deciding who should visit the village, since team south kind of needs all the help they can get. I decide to use everyone to attack first, figuring I can send someone north to collect the Secret Book after the initial wave of enemies is dead. Dorcas and Lowen move up to take the hits. Up north, a Javelin toss by Oswin sets up a Hector kill on the first Pegasus Knight. Those two can tank stuff easily, it's just a matter of keeping Matthew and Serra safe. To help with this, Hector and Oswin kill some more flying horsies, because they're cool dudes who like killing things. Down south we witness how amazing Rebecca is, doing 6 damage to 25HP bandits. That's going to get the job done! Marcus nukes the archer, Lowen gets the Peg, Eliwood fails to do more than chip and everyone has to wall him off, but not well enough. Then he crit-kills the bandit on enemy phase. Guess he's just trying to get my blood pressure up.
Hector gets to low health but even with 6HP he can take a hit, so he continues to pick off enemies. One Pegasus Knight decides to make a dash for the forts to heal, which means Rebecca actually kills an enemy. I know, I'm astonished too. Marcus kills the boss because no one else stands any sort of reasonable chance against the guy. And yes, I got the Secret Book, sold my Red Gem and bought an Iron Axe that Hector will be using soon. "Yay"
--
Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
On this map, Matthew can help us recruit a Guy. Oh man my puns are so ****ing awesome
LOL Rebecca barely even manages a 2HKO on Pegasus Knights here, she doesn't even do enough damage to soften them for an Eliwood kill. So sad. Anyway, Oswin heads west with Dorcas following to get to the village, Bartre lures and kills a Peg, everyone else goes south. Lowen takes some abuse but he's able to survive, and Marcus gets to the village. Marcus then lures in Guy so Matthew can speak to him.
We block off the enemies from getting to weak units, then a soldier decides that Marcus is a better target than Hector. What an idiot. Rebecca manages to get a kill on a weakened soldier, then doesn't gain strength from it, ensuring her crap offense will remain crap. Then everyone kind of rushes forward and we smack things until they die. Oh yeah, Oswin owns the western side of the map. Hector eventually gets the boss kill. And Eliwood gained HP and Skill on his level up. Yeah, you're going on the bench when I get the chance, "main character" be damned.
--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Fog of war, lots of choke points to defend, not enough units to do it with. Whee!
Actually I don't mind this map. It's kind of tough but it's enjoyable. Except when I miss every ****ing attack I try, like is happening now <_< Anyway, Matthew and Dorcas go to the southeast, Guy guards the southwest, Lowen takes one bridge and Hector tries to take the other but he misses the archer so it gets to add an extra hit against him. Oswin heads north so he can help out, Marcus chills for now, everyone else tries to figure out how to not die.
Bartre rescues Merlinus to keep him safe, since Bartre isn't going to be contributing anything to the map. Then we just scramble around trying to kill dudes and stay alive. Nothing too exciting happens besides Marcus getting to fairly low HP.
Chapter 14
Hey, it's that FE6 chapter.
Big problem here is that my weapons are running low on uses <_< Need to shop a bit to fix that! So Marcus heads north with Serra behind him to recruit Erk, Oswin hangs out behind to deal with the enemies back there, everyone else either advances or helps Oswin out. The second turn is a hell of a cluster**** with a legion of enemies all coming at you at once. Marcus, Lowen and Hector form a partial wall to funnel enemies through so Guy doesn't die and no one else takes hits. Then everyone moves on and it rains.
Hector pretty much destroys the mounted brigade, including Erik, by himself. Marcus recruits Priscilla just in time, and Matthew buys some much needed weaponry for the team. Then Hector takes some damage but it's okay because he can get away in time to stay safe. Then we wait a while for a Pegasus Knight to heal on the forts. What a bore.
--
Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Leaf, Fin, Othin, Havan, and Eyvel show up at the village they've been staying at. Oh no! The village is under attack! Well... this is a Fire Emblem game isn't it? Of course it is! Breaking FE tradition, however, the first enemies are all soldiers and archers instead of bandits. How odd! Othin, being Othin, makes short work of a few soldiers and Fin manages to capture a couple of them and take their stuff which includes a javelin, a vulnerary, and a short lance. Not the best of loot, but it'll do for now. On the third turn, Dagdar, Tanya, and Marty show up, who will all proceed to do bubcus this mission aside from Tanya shooting one soldier. I manage to feed Leaf a few archer kills, but Othin and Havan critical the hell out of everything else.
They both level, and they both get the same amazing level up of 1 skill. Yay. Leaf doesn't quite level, but he comes close. Othin levels again, though, and gets strength and speed this time.
Then I have everyone run around getting all the village loot including Othin's personal weapon Pugi and Havan's brave axe. Afterward, I have Eyvel soften up the boss and Leaf get the kill with his light sword for a level up where he gets strength and luck.
Pretty easy chapter, but then, it's only the first... it can't get too much harder...
There's actually really not much to talk about this chapter. It's actually a pretty standard 'bandits, bandits everywhere!' mission. The only notable exception to 'nothing to talk about' is recruiting Ronan, who has the amazing distinction of having a FIFTY FIVE PERCENT magic growth but being unable to use magic because he's an archer. Oh yeah, and his strength growth is fifteen percent.
At least he can tank magic damage! Or he would, if gaining levels was possible for such an ass unit. At least he has movement stars, so every now and then he can nothing TWICE instead of just once <_<
--
Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Yay, another Hector-exclusive chapter. And we get to defend!
So the big goal I have here is to kill the boss so I can get his Dracoshield. That thing will be very, very handy. Other than that, try to live. Obviously.
There are not enough durable units to cover this much space, so Lowen, Oswin, Marcus and Hector put in most of the work while everyone else hides. Oh, and Guy covers the door to the northeast. Once the mage dies (easy to arrange for turn 2), you can put a healer behind him and he'll do just fine.
So because I don't kill the boss by turn 2 like I usually would, I have to deal with a lot of reinforcements. Things get very dicey, with Erk taking a lot of damage, Serra taking a hit, etc but then I get the boss down on turn 5 and it's just clean up from there. This got a bit ugly at times but the durable units are so durable that their death is never in question as long as you periodically heal them, so it's just a matter of figuring out how to keep the healers safe long enough.
Chapter 16
Hey, it's Lyn and her merry band.
Oswin goes to intercept some Pegasus Knights, everyone goes south, Florina wants the village, etc. Lyn sells her gem and buys some weapons to hand out to her cavaliers, while Wil positions himself to lure in and do heavy chip to the two Javelin Pegasus Knights. Thanks Wil, once they're dead you'll never see combat again! He and Lyn finish them, then Kent crit-kills a Merc and Sain softens the other. Hector's group continues to move south and kill things, with Marcus heading to the boss so he can deal with the mages and archers who could use ballistas on me.
We get a bit slowed down by the enemies around the two forts, but it's nothing too serious. Oswin hangs back to deal with reinforcements, but they never actually show up. Huh. Marcus gets the boss kill because I don't want Hector wasting Wolf Beil any more (it's already down to 8 uses after that massacre in chapter 14). I win, if you didn't already guess that part.
--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Now get to recruit super badass Raven, Lucius, and unlock the side quest where we get to recruit my favourite character in the game.
Erk has likely seen his final chapter as he goes on the bench here. Eliwood will also be a bench warmer. Lyn will see some action as Lowen goes on the bench; as good as he is (and his durability is quite nice), there's only two Knight Crests I'll have access to in a reasonable time frame, and Kent and Sain are taking those. Florina is also sitting on the bench because this chapter is a bit too bow-heavy for her to enjoy.
Hector goes up to bash the Knight, which Kent eventually kills. Lyn crits the Myrmidon to death, Oswin and Sain combine to kill the Merc, and that's the first turn taken care of. This is not a "first turn is worst turn" situation though, because the narrow halls of this map can be a bit of a bother later on. Oswin goes back to be the Merlinus guard when enemies show up, Lyn and Matthew go to the treasure room, everyone else presses onwards, being careful to avoid getting in Raven's range. And then he gets recruited. And now after a few chapters of leveling, he'll be destroying everything.
I fail to get the Silver Sword (that thing is ridiculously hard to get) but everything else I do acquire, including the side quest, of course. Hector got the boss kill, bringing Wolf Beil down to 5 uses. Not a big deal though, since he's now good enough to fight without it.
Chapter 17x
It's a port town and we fight pirates and CANAS joins us and CANAS is great because he's CANAS CANAS CANAS.
Oswin, Priscilla, Sain, Florina and Raven is the team here. This is training grounds for Sain and Raven in particular.
Not much happens at first. CANAS joins, Raven goes north to massacre some pirates, we collect items from villages. Then Damian and his crew show up. I find it amusing that he shows up talking about Eliwood, who isn't even with us on this map. Anyway, Hector lures him in and tanks him for a bit, then runs south to cover another passage while Oswin takes over Damian duties. Florina gets a Javelin crit on the Swordslayer pirate to gain about 50 EXP, got to love those level 17 pirates and their EXP payouts. Raven keeps doing his thing in the north, and CANAS gets a kill, and also tells me to stop capitalizing his name so much.
Oswin gets the kill on Damian, then I clear out enemies before I trigger the central group of powerhouse enemies. Florina moves to just the right spot to get the moving without being in range of any of them, and then everything gets messy because they're tough bastards and I have to retry things a few times before I finally get it right. Canas gets fed some kills he doesn't deserve at all, but that's fine by me. Raven talks to Fargus to end the map.
--
Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
So I think for my next Radiant Dawn playthrough, I'm gonna focus on characters I never use. Such as Aran, Illyana, Rolf, etc. and actually bring them into the Endgame. That might be interesting. Sad though, because it'll mean leaving out a bunch of characters that I love.
-- ~Halo Now you learn the mistake of challenging me. http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2734/hieis.jpg
There's always that "can't use everyone you wish you could" dilemma. Except in FE4. And Gaiden to a lesser extent. And FE5...kind of has "can't use who you like" and "have to use lots of people" balancing each other out in a weird way.
--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Uh, guys, I'm getting flashbacks. Something about this next map is making me feel like there's going to be gargoyles stabbing me. There's no gargoyles in Fire Emblem, right? Wonder why I'm feeling this way...
Chapter 18
It's pirate ship time! The easier of the GBA boat chapters, thankfully. Well, I actually like Phantom Ship more, but it's a pain in the ass.
So I have two promotion items I want to steal here (Elysian Whip and Guiding Ring), a boss I can kill whenever to end the chapter, shops I need to buy because it will be another five chapters before I can restock again, and...is that all? Oh yeah, enemies to kill. I keep forgetting about those.
So Oswin handles the ship on the east with no problem because he's amazing at tanking stuff in the early game, everyone else really struggles since even Marcus can barely hold up under the assault of this many enemies, and I need to rely on some dodging to stay alive. I manage to steal the Elysian Whip without incident though.
Mad scramble in the middle! Pegasus Knights are jokes but they can still do substantial damage to Priscilla, Matthew and Lucius. Oswin and Hector tank the eastern side while everyone else cuts a path to the boss. Eventually, on turn 9, Matthew steals the Guiding Ring and Marcus kills the dude. Just in time too, because my aggression had put me in a position where I likely could not have lasted another turn.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
From: Panthera | #311 There's always that "can't use everyone you wish you could" dilemma. Except in FE4. And Gaiden to a lesser extent. And FE5...kind of has "can't use who you like" and "have to use lots of people" balancing each other out in a weird way.
Gaiden? Didn't know there was such a thing.
That's one of the things I dislike about the Endgame of Radiant Dawn of course, there's not enough spots for all the characters that I really like and want to bring alone. Bleh.
-- ~Halo Give into the Night. http://a.imageshack.us/img443/8466/shadowhalo.png
Fire Emblem Gaiden is FE2. It's where a lot of the things that people say FE8 (and 7 and 10 to an extent) "innovated" actually came from. Monsters, branching promotion paths, third tier promotions, multiple lords, multiple story paths that you switch between, a world map with repeatable encounters, all of it came from FE2. It's also very primitive and downright cruel at times. Pretty kickass soundtrack though, especially the final chapter music.
That's some final battle music if I ever heard any!
--
Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
A fog of war chapter. Joy. Even more annoying in FE5 is that fog of war literally obscures EVERYTHING... including the terrain. Luckily, this chapter isn't very hard even still, and Leaf, Othin, Havan, and Tanya clean stuff up pretty well. I capture a few enemies as I go for some axes, bows, and vulneraries, and generally have a pretty easy time. I had a 'close call' with Ronan which I didn't really care about, but he ended up surviving anyway.
Get up to the top of the map, ignore Shiva, capture Lifis, and finish the chapter. Pretty easy.
Ronan gains a level and actually gets strength. What.
Aside from that, this chapter started out yet again pretty uneventful. I gave Tanya a few levels to help with a certain later gaiden chapter (unfortunately she hasn't gained a point of strength, so that means she's benched as soon as I can afford to), and pretty much slaughtered everything up til the end. Made a rescue chain to rescue the NPC hostages, and then get up toward the boss... only to discover I wasn't QUITE fast enough to stop the game from pulling it's first absolute **** move of making the enemy mage near the boss take one of the chests there and claim a meteor. I AM fast enough to kill him before he can use it, however, so I just end up losing a meteor which sucks but isn't as bad as dying to it.
Eyvel kills the boss as she's the only one that can actually hurt him besides Leaf. I wanted to give Leaf the kill, but unfortunately he decided attacking Eyvel with a bow was a better idea than attacking Fin with a spear. Whatever. Not that big of a deal. I do some trade shenanigan and give Leaf and Lifis both the Baldo and Hezul scrolls, along with Eyvel's fire sword, a hand axe, a short spear, some vulneraries and both the speed ring and shield ring I still have, put a few other things in storage, then capture the throne.
And I say goodbye to the last easy chapter for like another 5 chapters and prepare my ass for what comes next.
That mage suddenly opening the chest to get that Meteor tome is crazy the first time you see it. FE5 enemies do some crazy ****, like those dark mages in chapter 24 who, if you silence them, will just trade their staffs to one of the other ones so he can use it instead.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
I really, really like this chapter. It's pretty unique, and I wish more FE stages would use unique premises like this one. Radiant Dawn has a few, though. Anyway, the mission starts out and I immediately send my new crew of Brighton, Machua, and Lara down south to save Lifis and grab the 4 chests down there. The NPC bandits I free do what bandits do best, and that is go get themselves killed on stronger people. I then rescue Leaf and his two new companions, Fergus and Karin. After grabbing the four chests to their left and fending off some reinforcements, I manage to get everyone equipped and able to fight. I hand Brighton the Hezul scroll and Fergus the Baldo scroll, then head north from there.
I rescue the civilians, grab some more chests, kill the two armor knights, have a close call with Machua almost dying, rescue some more civilians, grab the rest of the chests, and escort all of the civilians out.
...And head to the top door for the 'fun' time lying behind it.
Lifis opens the door... and then gets chain rescued/dropped by everyone else leaving Brighton and Fergus is the front to face a horde of every flavor of armor knights you can imagine AND two mages. Son of a *****. Several vulnerary uses later, everyone in that group is dead but Dalshin (who ALMOST got killed by Brighton) and a mage, and I rush Leaf in to recruit him and kill the mage with Machua. Everyone escapes before Leaf, and then Leaf follows after them.
That went better than I expected, but that top door is absolutely nerve wracking. I've definitely had a character die there before in previous runs even when I was expecting it, so I'm glad to be through that. Next up is 4x.
From: Panthera | #318 That mage suddenly opening the chest to get that Meteor tome is crazy the first time you see it. FE5 enemies do some crazy ****, like those dark mages in chapter 24 who, if you silence them, will just trade their staffs to one of the other ones so he can use it instead.
Whoaaaaaaaa.
-- ~Halo Live, fight, survive, as a family. http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/7469/batfamily.jpg
...And FE9 is my second favorite and I have played that on Maniac Mode (which is only in the Japanese version), which makes it just about as evil as FE5.
The mounted units go south, Florina hangs around the starting area to recruit Fiora, everyone else plugs up gaps to prevent the starting island from being overwhelmed. Raven decides to gain +1 HP and nothing else on his first level. Best set of offensive stat growths in the game and he declines to bother with any of them. What a jerk.
So Marcus gets mobbed a bit here, but he lives. Nomads suck. Fiora shows up and gets recruited, Hector plugs up two snag-bridges at once because he's just that kind of guy. The Pegasus Knights here are super annoying, flying in from the fog and chucking Javelins from water tiles where they're hard to reach. Kent is being pitifully slow on this playthrough for some reason, his level ups are terrible and he's getting doubled by Nomads when he switches to a Javelin, which is not good at all.
I set someone on the edge of Uhai's Longbow range to get him to switch over to his least useful weapon, then Hector stays in that range so everyone else can poke him at melee range without fear of him bringing out his Killing Edge. Then he decides to do it anyway and smacks Raven on the head. "Oh". No crit though, so it's all good, and it means that Kent won't die if he throws a Javelin at the guy, so he manages to get the kill and FINALLY gain a point of speed!
--
Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Yeah, I might have to swap Kent out and just go with Lowen instead.
I don't even remember 4x all that way but FE5 side quest chapters are pretty much all jerks to some extent or another so I'm sure it will be horrible. I mean I'm sure you can handle it. Good luck!
--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
From: SomeKindOfJoke | #326 This topic plus a few nights in a hotel with nothing else to do inspired me to play FE4 for the first time!
Man, these chapters are looooong. That huge forest at the end of Chapter 1 was kind of obnoxious.
Yeah FE4's chapters are really long, but there's only 12. I don't think there's anything as annoying as the forest at the end of chapter 1, again, though. Maybe the desert way later on?
Also did you recruit Ayra/Ira (depends on the patch you're using)? A lot of new players have trouble getting her.
Also did you recruit Ayra/Ira (depends on the patch you're using)? A lot of new players have trouble getting her.
Yeah, I'm using a guide for the recruitable characters (I normally wouldn't do that, but this game seems a little overwhelming in in that regard). Good thing, too, because she's amazing.
--
What is this, some kind of joke?! Go, then. There are other worlds than these.
As if the arbitrary BS of raising Nils to level 7 in Lyn Mode wasn't dumb enough, now we also have to "kill" Kishuna to unlock 19xx. You know, Kishuna. The guy who is ****ing impossible to reliably hit. Awful requirements and the chapter it unlocks isn't even very good. **** this ****.
Okay so I don't get to bring very many people to this map, meaning Kent will fall behind even more. *sigh*. Florina goes to visit the ruins to get sales fodder (AKA Goddess Icon), everyone with 1-2 range advances into range of the mages, Raven stays behind to smite some Pegasus Knights. He decides that gaining HP, Luck and Defense is appropriate. Why the **** is this guy not getting strength and speed?
So Kishuna shows up and shuts down the Bolting the boss has. I want to steal that guys Silver Card if I can. And I can, and I do. Then I begin the agonizing process of clearing out Kishuna's honour guard and taking him down. Canas goes back to the start to level off the mage reinforcements, Hector pokes at the boss to try to kill him, then everyone throws stuff at him because I realize that failing to kill him first will mean he'll Bolting someone to death once Kishuna leaves. So he dies, then I have to rig a crit from Raven with a Killing Edge and rig some hits because Silver Lance Marcus, Raven crit, Sain and Florina with Iron Lances all need to connect to actually kill the bastard, and no one has a hit rate about the mid-60s. So glad to have save states, this would be the most obnoxious thing ever without them.
Have I mentioned I hate unlocking 19xx yet? Because I do.
--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
And in case anyone is the type to complain about RNG abuse, I just did the calculations. Going from memory so it's surely off by a bit on the numbers (especially since I just estimated true hit instead of looking it up) but still, close enough. 7%. That is how likely it is to land the hits needed to kill Kishuna (remember, once you attack him, he leaves at the end of the turn, so you have only one shot at it). I am not restarting the entire chapter on account of a necessary 7% success rate that comes once the entire rest of the map is done. That would be dumb.
--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
We go a night where instead of sleep, we play Fallout New Vegas all night and mainly run around attempting to depopulate the entire desert. Oh, didn't I tell you guys, Hector invented the video game after chapter 19x and everyone went home to game instead of saving the world?
Yeah I should be focused again by the weekend. Those "one chapter per day" updates were lame, instead of forcing myself to play I'll give it time so I can get back to going quickly.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Way, wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy late, but since I'm playing through Ephraim Hard Mode for fun right now - if only to say I did it, thought I'd weigh in.
You should comment on how I probably missed some obvious super easy way to deal with Phantom Ship and the two hours I spent trying to deal with it were thus wasted.
Maybe I just got obscenely lucky, but for me, this level was completely overhyped. Normally I screw around and deploy my favorite characters, and so silly things happen like "train all 3 Pupils simultaneously", and "bring in fodder character to build supports for the support archive". But pretty much based entirely on Phantom Ship hype, I stopped playing around and took FE8 "seriously" and did things I never usually do, like use Seth and Duessel.
What I did really only depends on one thing, having an even passably competent Tana (or really, Vanessa too, I guess). My Tana was probably Level 9 or 10 which I admit is probably higher than yours could have been since I haven't added on a "clear as fast as I feel I could" requirement like you did, but at the same time, Tana has been getting so badly RNG screwed this run, that might not even matter. I think she only entered the chapter with 1 STR over her base stats. Really, the only thing Tana needs to be able to do is one-round the Mogalls semi-reliably. By this, I mean, she's usually going to encounter them in packs of 2. Mine had an annoying tendency of being able to one-round one with a Javelin, but not the other. But this still works (provided her RES lets her survive the extra hit she could take).
I also dragged Colm, Natasha, and Joshua around, but they were (mostly) immaterial, with potentially one exception - Torch. Colm with Torch, and Natasha with a Torch Staff is actually pretty useful here, if only to negate the Fog of War and make your Player Phase more productive. My basic strategy was, at the very beginning, use Torch to reveal the upper and bottom left areas, and then send Tana into the upper left to deal with the Mogalls there, and Cormag (who might have had one level over his base, but I don't even think he had that, I recruited him pretty late into Chapter 10) goes south to handle the Gargoyles. Cormag can't double, or at least mine couldn't, so I just threw the Killer Lance on him. That makes his job a bit more luck-based than I'd like, but not overly so, I think he can deal with not getting any crits, you probably just have to use an Elixir to heal him to keep him alive through the next enemy phase when they'll attack you again.
Ephraim, Duessel, and Seth just clog up the planks when the ships merge and clean up with Javelins and Hand Axes, while the other ground units follow them from behind, trying to keep as much of the map revealed for Tana and Cormag to deal with reinforcements as they come. Really, the entire strategy I had was dealing with the reinforcements immediately so they couldn't really get to a point where they're overwhelming. By the time the massive amount of Gargoyle reinforcements show up from the left, the middle ship should be nearly cleared, and safe for you to basically pour into it as you wipe up the remaining units. From there, I had most of my units flee over to L'Arachel (who is completely safe and Dozla can handle the like... 2 enemies they'll encounter) while Seth and Duessel turned and met the gargoyles, with occasional support from Ephraim and Cormag.
...Ahahaha, somehow I went over the character limit. Part 2 next post.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
I did have a highly levelled and fairly fortunate Ephraim, and there's still one major section that can wipe you out if you get unlucky (There was a group of like 4 Mogalls that I want to say was north of the middle ship that Tana never got a chance to deal with in time - they might be part of the massive reinforcement group, can't recall - and so they ended up going after Ephraim. Depending on how injured Ephraim is, the amount of hits he can take varies, although in general it's probably a safe bet to say if they all hit, he's doomed.)
Honestly, only the Mogalls truly registered as a major threat to me, and they were mostly neutralized by Tana, and so the rest of the chapter was fairly simple. I mean, sure, you can't sit around because if you get caught between the gargoyle reinforcements and the middle ship, you are probably doomed, but that was never a problem for me. I never even used Pure Waters too, if you throw those into the mix, you could probably take the edge off even the Mogalls.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
Tana being 5 or 6 levels ahead of base after only one chapter where she has extremely little to do (has to hang around to recruit Cormag and is pinned down by Fleets on most of the map; she's not seeing action in chapter 9) is pretty "what" to me, no idea how you'd pull that off. Plus the absolute biggest threat to me was the Deathgoyle boss, everything else was just a case of potentially swarming injured people, even the Mogalls needed 2/3 hits to kill anyone and dodging 1 in 3 attacks was not implausible. The problem is that with my low turn counts, gaining experience for most units did not happen the way it usually would, which is why that boss was such a bastard - especially on the run where I actually managed to beat him, he spawned with 16 speed, which translates to 15 AS. With both of Ephraim's cavaliers needing to gain something like 11+ levels on average to hit 12 speed, that left me with several units who were getting doubled by it, and most everyone gets 2HKO'd by it (Joshua for example avoids the doubling, but then he was left with like 5 HP and even with a Lancereaver out he couldn't do much damage), so finding ways to wall everyone off from it was not easy, especially since I had Seth, Duessel and Ephraim clearing off the second boat, and the timing worked out so that the boss would show up while that boat still had a ton of stuff on it that needed to be cleared.
It's definitely the chapter that most proves that trying to speed through the game with only the best units is harder than a slower run due to getting far fewer level ups.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
...That's actually a good point about Tana, what the hell did I do? She shouldn't have seen any significant combat in Chapter 9 or 10. I want to say she came out of Phantom Ship at Level 11, but I also don't recall her gaining a ton of levels there, so I can't imagine she was too far off that going in. Maybe she entered at Level 8, but I still don't even know how the hell she got there even. ...Really should have recorded the levels before I went into the chapter.
I definitely agree with you that the low turn count would cause problems because of a lot less EXP, but I guess I underestimated the tenacity of the second boat. I treated Duessel, Seth, and even Ephraim to an extent, as "constants" where the low turn count nature wouldn't really "hurt" them too much in comparison to my admittedly rather laid back run. In which case the second boat, by my reasoning, should have been mostly cleared in both. In retrospect, this isn't necessarily something I could assume given that Ephraim is probably in a notably "worse" situation, and I'm not sure how the mogalls I had Tana deal with would act if they weren't constantly harassed. If they join in on the fun at the second boat, then yeah, I can see how that would quickly turn into a more time consuming task.
...That Tana thing is going to bug me now though. Even if I fed her a decent amount of enemies post-recruitment in Chapter 9, which I don't think I did to anything that could be considered in excess (although obviously in a low turn count run she's probably not getting anything, so in that sense, any EXP could be considered in excess) ...I don't see how I got her 4 levels. I'm not even sure I understand how I could have gotten her 3 levels. What did I do?
And yeah, that Deathgoyle boss is a real jerk. If my non-Ephraim/Seth/Duessel/maybe Cormag units had been unable to escape his range before Duessel could bait him, that could have turned out very badly. Or at least a fair bit more stressful.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
I should note though that I took a bit of an alternate strategy to Chapter 10 in terms of recruiting Cormag. I basically got into a race with Cormag to Duessel, recruited Duessel, and had Duessel recruit Cormag, freeing up Tana to play around with the Fleet that had the Secret Book among a few other things (like pick off reinforcements over there, as well as being free to help fight the units that started in the way). So she definitely had some EXP opportunities there, but I don't want to say any more than 2 levels max. And even that seems high in my mind.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
Yeah, not having Tana or Vanessa at a good enough level to go north and deal with the Mogall hordes as they arrive also hurts me, since it means whoever is on the north bridge has to put up with them, and that isn't easy since the number of characters who take them plus whatever else comes at them from the boat is roughly 2. I also had terrible luck with the promoted zombie enemies (enemy? I can't remember if there's more than one or not), they have no stats but strength and HP and yet they kept managing to hit me, and that tends to hurt pretty badly.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
This map can be a pain from the sheer number of enemies it throws at you. A handful of them are dangerous (Arch Mogalls, the "promoted" eyeballs, are pretty damn powerful, for example) but even besides that they threaten to use their soft, squishy flesh to break all your weapons. Especially the Cyclops brigade up north, who aren't as ridiculous as their Lagdou Ruins brethren but are still pretty damn bulky. Fortunately, I can bypass basically everything with proper Warp usage.
I do my last shopping trip of the game here. Buying lots of Silvers for everyone to play with, I'll want as much firepower as I can for clearing my path to the bosses in the next two maps. Unfortunately I can't do my usual Ephraim Warp boss-kill tactic here because even Ephraim probably can't withstand all the enemies in that part of the map, especially when he takes a huge hit from Morva first, and he needs to seize. If I'm counting correctly Duessel should have no problem nuking Morva for me though, and then I can send Ephraim in to seize right after.
So this goes exactly according to plan. I move north, Knoll summons stuff for lulz, I loop everyone into the position they need to be in for the final turn while keeping enemies off my back, Duessel gets Warped to nuke Morva, Saleh repairs the Warp staff again, Ephraim is warped and seizes. Completed in 4 turns.
Dude why the hell are you not fielding Myrrh here? Fielding her in earlier chapters may be stupid because she really does start out kind of weak and Luna can rip her to shreds, but in a chapter where all of the enemies are monsters, she's the absolute best.
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
ShadowHalo17 posted... Well no, I beat it with just Eirika. I don't believe in giving Seth any experience when I don't need to.
Hell yeah. I once did a run where I only used female units (except, of course, in Chapter 5x, where no females are available). Actually was inspired by an FAQ on this site detailing such a run for FE7 (although obviously Hector was an exception--and they allowed the use of Bartre as well in order to get Karla, so it really wasn't a true "female only" run at all). Granted, going "females only" meant I had to take the easier Eirika route rather than the Ephraim route, but I still managed to be quite successful!
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
Dude why the hell are you not fielding Myrrh here?
I've never used Myrrh (but I was thinking after this Ephraim Hard Mode run I'm doing now, I'd give Myrrh, as well as a few other things I've never really done in FE8, a shot), so you could take this with a grain of salt, but I suspect it's because Myrrh would be absolutely useless in a low turn run of the chapter.
The entire crux of the strategy is warp skipping to Morva and seizing immediately. Anyone not being warped is not going to see any significant combat, whereas whoever gets warped is going to get swarmed. If Myrrh is in the former group, there's no need to field her because what EXP can be gained by that group, you might as well give to your core army, and in the latter group, I can't imagine Myrrh being anywhere close to Duessel's level. Base Myrrh has, what? 15 HP? ...I don't think the Dragonstone increases that (even if it buffs her Defense and Resistance) which means Myrrh is a goner if she's over there, whereas Duessel is a tank, and probably destroys her in damage potential anyway if he's using Garm.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
From: TsunamiXXVIII | #342 Dude why the hell are you not fielding Myrrh here? Fielding her in earlier chapters may be stupid because she really does start out kind of weak and Luna can rip her to shreds, but in a chapter where all of the enemies are monsters, she's the absolute best.
I did field Myrrh. She flew around on mountains and I think I let her get one of the kills needed to clear a path to my warping territory just for fun, although I could be remembering it wrong. Keep in mind that since she can't take on Morva and my other units have no problem killing stuff to let Moulder/Duessel/Tethys/Ephraim get into place, she's not the "best" at all, she's completely irrelevant filler.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
I am so utterly shocked that that betrayal they talked about happening last chapter did indeed happen!
Hooray random stuff from the base menu. It shouldn't be so fun to make decisions about supports and skills and BEXP but it is. This is probably why I take an eternity to have anyone even leave home castle in FE4, too busy trying to get items and arenas perfect.
There's a big dramatic battle going on and I get stuck with the duty of burning supplies in a camp. Oh well, I guess you can't expect NPCs to have done something like this. Or anything else that requires a brain. Or strength. Or even just a warm body. Or a cold one.
Battle begins, Neph, Boyd and Oscar combine to kill some nearby enemies. Haar starts flying around to burn things. This map is a pyromaniacs dream. Everyone else makes a break for the door and gets stuck on the general there briefly, but that will be dealt with soon. Gatrie decides to double and kill an Elwind-wielding sage because generals doubling what's supposed to be the "speedy" type of magic user makes total sense. Ike has things he actually can't double on this map. Oh no, he's suddenly only "the best" instead of "the bestest"
Haar breaks down a door and gets Cancel off on it. That door won't try to slam shut on him again, no sir. I murder a random senator because he has a White Gem and I didn't bring Heather along. I like money almost as much as I like murder, so this is win/win for me.
Titania is kind of overleveled right now. She has no trouble killing enemies and she keeps dodging so she never needs to retreat for healing. She's almost at promotion already.
In any event, this is not a tough map at all. There's some reinforcements, but not too many, and the turn limit is twice what you actually need even when you're not being super-fast. It gives you 15 turns and I completed it in 7.
Ridiculous. Not even if they gave you a full 100 EXP would it be worth the loss of BEXP to murder those senators.
And given what's waiting in Chapter 4-E-3, I'd rethink my views on Ilyana if I were you.
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
From: xp1337 | #344 The entire crux of the strategy is warp skipping to Morva and seizing immediately. Anyone not being warped is not going to see any significant combat, whereas whoever gets warped is going to get swarmed. If Myrrh is in the former group, there's no need to field her because what EXP can be gained by that group, you might as well give to your core army, and in the latter group, I can't imagine Myrrh being anywhere close to Duessel's level. Base Myrrh has, what? 15 HP? ...I don't think the Dragonstone increases that (even if it buffs her Defense and Resistance) which means Myrrh is a goner if she's over there, whereas Duessel is a tank, and probably destroys her in damage potential anyway if he's using Garm.
This, although the swarming doesn't actually happen because I dance Moulder so he can set up the seize on the same turn that Morva dies. The big problem is that even if I'd used Myrrh, she'd need to actually keep up on her HP growth to be at all useful; with 130% HP growth, she *is* relying on that 30% chance because if she's not at level 18 or so on average, or if she's below average by two points at level 20, Morva OHKOs her, and she needs to be right on her level 20 speed average to double him as well. Actually she might even need to be above that, I only looked at his stats on normal mode, so this already bleak picture for her is likely even worse.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
So apparently these caves are dangerous or something. There's lava and fire. Will we fight a Balrog? I hope not, I always have a tough time reacting to those quick crouching jabs.
Also, I officially apologize for that terrible joke. Please don't hurt me.
I dislike maps with damaging terrain. Let's just get that out there. Anyway. I send Oscar, Titania, Shinon, Gatrie and Rhys down the east path while Ike, Mia, Haar, Neph, Mist and Reyson take the west side. The paths meet up before long anyway but I figure I should mention it if for nothing else than giving an idea of who I'm using. Titania kills the nearest enemy so she can get the last 3 EXP needed to promote to Gold Knight. Because I wasn't dominating enemies hard enough before. They get the mastery skill Sol. This was a good skill back when it was just the HP-drain effect, the tripled damage is a bit ridiculous. Then again, most FE10 mastery skills are insane. Oh yeah, Ranulf is still forced. I forgot he was deployed until I noticed him on the map <_<
Oscar has gotten over his "never get hit" period now. He's decided to block...hostile gusts of wind? with his face. He also can't double enemy generals here. GATRIE can do that. Okay it's not that bad actually. The one general he failed to double was apparently some magical freak with more speed than any of his fellow mooks. He's still failing pretty badly compared to the rest of the team. Might have to bench him if he doesn't pick up his game, much as I'd hate to lose Titania's support partner.
I feel like my write ups are getting a bit lamer. These chapters are just kind of uneventful. Not necessarily bad, but Ike's team is very powerful and doesn't get in trouble much, so nothing really surprises me into scrambling to save myself.
There is a pretty dense cluster of enemies at the very south end of the map. That's kind of exciting. It contains two Druids, which are enemies you don't see very much of in this game. Quite the change from Sacred Stones, where it felt like every enemy magic user was a Druid/Shaman or a monster that used dark magic. Things get hugely backed up when the enemies come charging forth, but half a dozen of them take lava meteor rock things on their heads, which helps me out a fair bit by softening them up. Not the best positioning ever there, guys. Ike destroys the boss with a crit and hits level 20. Yay, no more improvement for Ike until part 4. With 50HP, capped strength, skill and defense, and 28 speed, I don't think he cares.
I neglect to notice that a certain set of tiles is floor, not cliffs, and Ranulf eats a double Worm that drops him to 9HP. I'd care so much more if it didn't mean my healers actually get to gain EXP. That's the most interesting thing to happen all map long.
Awesome chapter; the boss is just absolutely hilarious. "The beasts...they wish to consume me!"
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
From: TsunamiXXVIII | #346 Ridiculous. Not even if they gave you a full 100 EXP would it be worth the loss of BEXP to murder those senators.
I hardly care. Ike's team has absolutely no worries about BEXP on normal mode because they destroy everything anyway.
And given what's waiting in Chapter 4-E-3, I'd rethink my views on Ilyana if I were you.
The chapter where she will die if she tries to fight more than one enemy, and will probably die if she gets hit at all because she's not good enough to get to a decent level? The chapter that only lasted something like three or four turns because it's super easy to just poke through the dragons and take out Dheginsea in short order, and could have been done in two turns with my team, and can be done in one turn if you bring Rafiel?
Yeah, I'm not too concerned about using a mediocre character solely to help with one chapter where she wouldn't even have done anything substantial anyway.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.